Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits

Observations

Ant castes, like workers and queens, are not only morphologically different but have distinct ageing phenotypes. Even though both are largely postmitotic, queens can live over 15 years, 100 times more than the workers. There are exceptional cases of worker ants living over 5 years, though. Workers show a clear acceleration of mortality whereas queens die very rapidly after their sperm stocks are exhausted, often assassinated by the workers. Therefore, queens may well feature negligible senescence [0002]. One Camponotus fellah queen set the record for ant longevity, living in an artificial nest for 26 years [1297].